To think it's not rude to tell someone they're spelling your name wrong?

[ZorbeeAndTheLemur]

DH and I run a business together. A supplier of ours, with whom we spend quite a substantial sum of money each month, repeatedly spells my name wrong on emails and invoices, despite the fact that I obviously spell it properly on my emails to him. He never spells DH's name wrong, and my name is a pretty popular well known name, and is not difficult to spell.

He emailed me today spelling my name wrong and in my reply I mentioned that he regularly spells my name incorrectly and could he please amend his records to spell it correctly in future.

DH says it was rude to correct him but it really has been annoying me. Especially as it's a popular name and as I regularly email him with my name spelt correctly when I sign off the email at the end.

YANBU, I have a town as a surname... working in a different setting one day someone insisted on calling me Mrs Bathgate. I didn't reply as I didn't realise that she meant me. She told me off for not responding but why would respond when my name is Mrs Stirling? I wasn't to know she meant me when she kept yelling Mrs Bathgate across the room!

My Dd has a Gaelic name and gets all matters of spellings and pronounatiations.

Not quite the same but I have recently had a birthday and my mil just wrote my first name on the envelope as I think she has forgotten my surname ( been with her son for 20 years, not married )

Fine if it is nicely/politely, I do it a lot - people give me a Y instead of an IE and I hate it!

All my daughters school books have come home with her surname spelt wrong this year. I've corrected all of them
She had a swimming certificate once with both her first name and surname spelt wrong. I'm guessing the teacher must have had the register to write them...
She did apologize, she said she was on autopilot.

I have a slightly differently spelt first name, people always spell it wrong even if I've signed off an email with the correct spelling they will then reply with the normal spelling like they think I've spelt it wrong and are correcting me! It drives me mad but in all honesty I've dealt with it my entire life and I do t bother anymore as what difference does it really make?

People spell my name wrong more often than not. I usually let it go, but I did get pretty pissed off when I opened a new bank account and they spelled it with the ‘other’ spelling

I also had to point it out to a colleague recently - I had been politely ignoring it in internal emails, but then it started to appear on paperwork wrongly and that tipped me over the edge. I work in a very multicultural environment and always make sure I check I’ve got people’s names correct, I’d appreciate the same courtesy in return.

So YANBU!

While I’m on the subject, it annoys me so much when reps get my name wrong. I want to shout ‘you’re trying to sell me things, you might stand a better chance if you get my name right! It’s in my email address!’

At work I spell my name out and still get called Random names, I've been called boys names too and a he, I just put up with it! I work in recovery so one wrong word can make a customer really angry and it's not worth it for me.

A family member spells my married surname wrong and also my DS's name ! It bothers me slightly but I won't say anything as pronunciation is same so hey ho

I’m very hot on spelling peoples’ names correctly (and pronouncing them the way the owner pronounces them) - it’s a sign of respect to get one of the most basic things about a person right. Although I suspect those who don’t, just don’t care or don’t notice, rather than being deliberately disrespectful.

If it bothered me I would have added a ps with a friendly add on, such as “by the way, in case you haven’t noticed my name is ......... and not ...........” and then added a smiley face or something similar.

Sorry, didn’t answer the AIBU - you weren’t!

Next time send him this:

I am always ridiculously careful about spellings and pronunciation of names as i get this a lot with my name. Normal, popular name with two spellings, both well known. It irritates the shit out of me!

Yanbu.

So to summarise YANBU!

My name is constantly spelt wrong (there is a double letter and single letter that people get the wrong way around) - the way my name is spelt is the correct, standard spelling yet so many still do it. I've reached the point where, if someone is writing down my name, I spell it straight out - but also say 'that's the spelling I use' to acknowledge that there is another way and they aren't actually wrong if they thought it was that (even though they ARE). I have to be pedantic about it as it's in my email address - I wouldn't bother otherwise.

Aargh, people misspelling names is the height of rudeness. It's lazy, sloppy, and to me it shows they don't care enough to show you the same courtesy you are showing them. Rude rude rude.

I had a man continually do this to me despite me asking him nicely to please spell my name correctly (think Jane when it's Jayne) as many of the emails and related documents were needed for court.

He responded by misspelling my surname in every email as well, so clearly on purpose.

He's called Richard, so I started to address him as Dickie, Richie, Ritchie, Ricky etc until I received an email with my name spelt correctly. Neither of us has done it again. He was playing a power trip with me, and I wasn't having it.

YANBU!

I have a name with a very standard shortening (Catherine/Cathy, Rebecca/Becky that sort of thing). Unfortunately I really don't like the shortened version, so never use it and never respond to it. People are forever shortening it and I'm forever correcting them! Part of me thinks I shouldn't corrected then but party of me thinks is massively disrespectful as it's basically calling me by the wrong name! I've bothered to learn their name, why can't they do me the same courtesy?!
A typical conversation goes like this...
Me: Hello, It's Rebecca.
Them: Hi Becky!
Me: No, sorry it's Rebecca.
Them: Pardon?
Me: It's Rebecca, not Becky
Them: Oh.
If I used the shortening then I would introduce myself like that!
Sorry, rant over!

I get frustrated when people read an email or form and they translate my name to a spelling other than the one i gave them.

For some reason people seem to assume I spell my name with an extra vowel. Even when I spell it out to them they wrote it down wrong

YANBU to correct someone.

Years ago when I asked someone to correct their mis-spelling of my name they got defensive and said "it's just a name". I pointed it that it's part of my identity and it would be more respectful to change it for me because it matters to me, than to try to tell me how to feel about it.

I don’t think you were rude st all.

On the account I work on there are two of us with the same name who spell it one letter differently. People never get the right spelling and I think that’s totally fair enough so would never correct them. But it does annoy me when they spell our other colleague’s different name wrong when it’s right there in the email.

Yanbu.

My mother had this issue even when it came to her bills because people would assume she typed her last name in wrong and they had corrected it. She started sending the bills back until they finally called her and asked her about them and she replied “ My name is this, not this therefore not only is it not addressed to the name I gave you, but opening it would be illegal since that is not my name nor do I have any identification that matches that name.” Rarely happens now.

Your husband is BVU. It's not his name they're misspelling.

It happened to me once. I had spelled my own name wrong by mistake (eg. Tarcy instead of Tracy) in the first email to someone, and they used that form. I then signed many emails with the correct form and they kept using the wrong one. I couldn't bring myself to correct them, though. Their mother tongue was not of European origin and might not be familiar with the name. Still...

If they don't correct it in future, start playing with the spelling of their name. And thrown in your husband's too.

I have a name that can be spelled two ways and it is the more unusual spelling, but not out there. Not all the common but I've rarely come across anyone who hasn't heard of the name. I have to spell it each time. Someone at work mis-spelled my name in an email a couple of weeks ago. I didn't say anything, because I was very busy, but she realised herself and apologised. I do think it is incredibly rude. Of course, I gave DD2 a common name with the Welsh spelling and the number of people who have told both of us that she has spelled her name wrongly is incredible! She then changed her surname to a Polish name and it is spelled in a variety of weird and wonderful ways.

XH had an aunt who announced to me that she had never heard of my name therefore she was going to call me something else. It began and ended with the same letters, but was totally different. However, despite my DM having the same name as me, XH's aunt could manage to call her the correct name. I stopped responding to the miserable old bitch.

In another job, my manager had a common name with an unusual spelling. Her boss always spelled it wrong, to the point where, when badges were ordered with our names on them, it took three attempts to get the correct spelling for the manager. Her boss asked if it really mattered. Well, yes, it does, because the other spelling sounds the same, but it wasn't her name.

Good for you telling the supplier! It is rude to get people's names wrong.